best shifter

When I bought my Super Shifter in the fall of 1971, I was told it wouldn't work on the street, that it was strictly for race cars. I believe it cost me about 130 dollars when you could buy a Competition Plus for less than 80.

The arms were specific to the Super Shifter and so were the rods, with the forward gear ones straight, reinforced with sleeves, and heat treated. The mounting bracket for the shifter frame consisted of two plates connected by three bolts running thru dowels to space the inner one (mounting plate) from the outer one (tower) the proper distance to allow the shift rods to run straight back horizontally in line from the shift arms on the side cover to the ones in the mechanism. This caused the shifter frame itself to end up well above the floor pan tunnel. It was my first Hurst shifter with a bolt on handle, and the only handle offered was the same short one as a Corvette.

I added a reverse lockout as soon as they became available. It cost me a little over seven dollars. It was a square shaped affair that sandwiched between the shifter frame and the tower it bolted to. You actuated it by pushing and pulling on a little red ball mounted on a fully threaded rod (crude but easy way to make it adjustable for the height of any shifter handle, with a plastic sleeve covering the threads) attached to it.

I had to cut a hole in the floor pan of my 2+2 from the front of the tunnel to just behind where the shifter frame mounted, and from the top of the tunnel all the way to the driver foot well and add a piece not unlike the factory one in a Duster or Dart. For the rear of the opening I had a box constructed by a local sheetmetal worker on his lunch hour that was just tall enough and big enough to contain the shifter frame and mount the original boot and ring. It had flanges on the bottom to attach it with sheet metal screws to the modified tunnel. I remember this box to be at least as high as the side bolster of the driver seat.

Any hopes of using a factory console were abandoned early on after I got the Super Shifter in my hands. It stayed in the car for over twenty five years and it never saw a drag strip. The wood shift knob I used in place of the white Hurst ball it came with is still on it. After I get a few other projects out of the way, I hope to install this shifter in a car I've had planned for some time now.

I don't know how long this design was used, but I have never actually seen another one like it.